lady said.     

       She went from room to room, making notes of the accommodations and thinking aloud as she set them down. “Four floors beside the basement. On the top floor two bedrooms; they'll do for Robbie and Joan and nurse. On the next floor one bedroom and a bathroom; I'll have that for myself. On the second floor one big room, running from front to back; that's where we'II have the parrot and the piano, and where I'll do my sewing. On the ground-floor a dining-room in front and a bedroom at the back; the bedroom at the back will do for cook. I won't have anyone sleeping below-stairs.       It's a very wee house, but tremendously cosy. And what pretty views—the garden in the square in front, and the old grey church with its graveyard at the back! It's all so green and quiet, like being in the country.”      

  

  

       She had far out-distanced the caretaker, hurrying over the first two floors that she might get to the top by herself. Now, as she descended, she inspected each room more leisurely. As yet she had said no word that would indicate that she had recognised me. I wondered what her motive had       been in coming; whether she had deliberately sought me or stumbled on me simply by accident. I would have known her anywhere, though I had been blind and deaf, by the fragrance of Jacqueminot that clung about her.     

       She had come to the tiny landing on the second floor, when something familiar in her surroundings struck her. She stood there holding the handle of the door and wrinkling her forehead. “It's odd,” she whispered;       “I can't understand it.” She turned the handle and entered. The room smelt stuffy; its windows had not been opened since she was last there. The sunlight, pouring in, revealed motes of dust which rose up dancing every time she stirred. In the grate were the accumulated ashes of many fires. Drawn across the hearth was the shabby couch. Nothing had been altered since she had left it. She passed her hand across her eyes, “It can't be; it would be too strange to find it like that.” Then she started to reconstruct the scene as she remembered it. “Robbie was there against the window, asking how many Huns his daddy had brought down, and I was sitting here in the shadow, when quite suddenly we heard his tread on the stairs. The door opened; he said something about being sorry that he'd frightened us, and 

 Prev. P 17/41 next